Brother Bones & His Shadows
Globetrottin' with Bones
IncludesSweet Georgia Brown, official theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters
This CD is packed with 17 full-length tracks of vintage bones music by Brother Bones & His Shadows.

The collection features the official Harlem Globetrotters' version of Sweet Georgia Brown. It is recognized as one of the most listened to recordings of all time - and clearly, the most listened to bones recording ever produced.

This is the only commercially available CD I have found that celebrates the work of Brother Bones. It is produced by Acrobat Music in the United Kingdom which specializes in "Collectables and re-issues from the 1920's to the 1970's."

Each tune features Brother Bones who whistles - and plays bones at the same time!

Look what's on the CD:

Sweet Georgia Brown

Charleston

Red Wing

Margie

China Town

Doll Dance

Jada

Jive Melody

Rosetta

Jingle Jangle Jingle

Five Foot Two Eyes Of Blue

San

Listen To The Mockingbird

Marie

Poor Butterfly

How Am I To Know

LOU-EASY-AN-I-A

Who is Brother Bones?Click "The Inside Story..." tab above for more info about Freeman "Brother Bones" Davis, the greatest whistling bones player of all time.

Recording type: Audio CD

Tracks: 17

Running Time: 46.8 min

Label: Acrobat Music

Made in England

Who is Brother Bones?

Freeman 'Brother Bones' Davis was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1902.

As a kid, Freeman made his own musical bones from cow ribs he got down at the slaughterhouse. His favorite bones included ivory, rosewood, ebony—and knives.

Gifted EntertainerFreeman Davis became known as Whistling Sam in Long Beach, California. That's where he worked his shoeshine stand in a barber shop vestibule. Folks say he would tap dance and pop his shoeshine rag to popular tunes.

And he could draw a crowd! Word has it he could whistle so loud that people in cars outside the barber shop would stop to listen—at least until the police came by to clear the traffic jam.

Brother Bones lived most of his years in Long Beach. But it all started back in Montgomery when he was just a little boy who listened to his mother whistle. "My mother used to whistle all the time...she was just a happy person," Brother Bones once explained to a newspaper reporter.

Although he never achieved great fame, Brother Bones was a gifted entertainer who performed at prominent venues including Carnegie Hall and The Ed Sullivan Show. He played on stage with eminent musicians including Woody Herman, Teddy Buckener, Jimmy Lunsford, and Russ Morgan.

Brother Bones served as a consultant to Bing Crosby in Frank Capra's Riding High (1950) where Bing plays dinner knives—bones style. And he even appeared in two feature films: Yes Sir, Mr. Bones (1951) with Scatman Crothers, and Pot O' Gold (1941) as a jail chef playing traditional spoons, starring James Stewart.

Recorded One of the Most Listened To Recordings in History The greatest legacy of Brother Bones is his 1948 recording of Sweet Georgia Brown.
The tune was adopted in 1952 by the Harlem Globetrotters basketball
team as their official theme song. This version "is probably in the top ten most listened to recordings in history," reported Steve Wixson, editor of the Rhythm Bones Player.

Greatest Whistling Bones PlayerBrother Bones died in 1974 at the age of 71. The Rhythm Bones Society offered a tribute to Freeman Davis at Bones Fest VI in 2002, which honored the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Noted for playing four bones in each hand, Freeman 'Brother Bones' Davis is admired among the world community of bone players as a consummate entertainer who developed into the greatest whistling bones player of all time.